288 THE CLASS STRUGGLE 289 The new Americanism By JAMES ONEAL That is the lesson of the Paris Commune that fell only because this solidarity was lacking in the workers of the other countries.
And in closing, Marx said in this speech, which, in a way, marked the end of his official activity as member of the General Council of the International Workingmen Association. As for me, will remain true to the task have undertaken, and will work unceasingly to lay the foundation for the solidarity among the working class. No, am not withdrawing from the International, and the remainder of my life, like all my energies in the past, will be dedicated to the triumph of our social ideal, which, be sure that that time will come will bring about the world rule of the proletariat.
What Marx promised there, he has kept. After the Hague Congress, as before, it was Marx who enriched the proletarian movement of the world with his powerful mentality.
Karl Marx cannot be called the founder of the International Workingmen Association. This first great union of the workers of all countries had no founder in the generally accepted sense of that term; it was the product of necessity at a given stage of economic development. But he first gave the organization its content. He determined its course, it was his untiring work that gave to the International its significance.
Therefore the name of Karl Marx is forever bound to the International Workingmen Association.
The intense propaganda now being waged by reactionary elements to Americanize the United States brings to mind some curious facts which these crusaders will hardly consider, facts which include a similar crusade in the 50s of the last century. Though this native American agitation is mainly directed against Germans who display some sympathy with the imperial assassins of Prussia, there is an unmistakable 3: ing against anything foreign in our opinions on various matters. The Americanization program is directed with as much regard to reclaiming the internationalist Jew and Russian as it is to winning or suppressing the nationalist German. The schools, the press, and politicians work with fever heat to accelerate the normal process of assimilating the foreigner. To do this our super patriots indulge in a glorification of American history and American institutions, themselves possessed with an exaggerated idea of the place of the United States in the history of nations, Once before we had this native American craze which was also used in the interests of reaction. The immigration to the United States following the Napoleonic Wars reached 20, 000 a year and, small though this number is in comparison with later immigration, it caused considerable apprehension for the safety of American institutions. This, with the rise of the Holy Alliance and its hostility to republics and the revival of the order of Jesuits, caused fear of foreign control of politics and education.
Mobs occasionally burned Catholic churches and clashed with foreigners in general. The excitement subsided temporarily until immigration increased from 30, 000 in 1830 to over 60, 000 in 1836, when the agitation revived. It was intensified when the Irish famine drove Irish proletarians and peasants in droves to our shores and the revolutions of 1848 sent more than a million from 1840 to 1850.
Out of this ferment came one of those political freaks that have so often testified to the shallow character of bourgeois